Although the obstacles to the progress of correct views on the subject of education, as well as to the adoption of the best means for promoting this all-important object, be too numerous easily to determine which are the most pre-eminently mischievous, I shall begin with those which appear to constitute the very “head and front of the offending.” These are created under the parental roof itself, where the first elements of education are almost always acquired, and where it is most obvious that if any but good seed are sown, the most precious part of the child's subsequent existence must be spent rather in the toilsome, painful business of extirpating weeds, than of bringing to perfection such plants as yield the wholesome bread of life. Hence, in a great measure, the little benefit, in numberless instances, from going to school; because, the short time generally allowed for this purpose (particularly in the case of girls) is too often occupied solely in clearing away and rooting out from the mind that which must necessarily be removed before any useful and lasting knowledge can well be implanted.
The first parental fault which I shall notice, is that by which children are first affected. It begins to influence them with the first dawnings of intellect—augments as that expands—accumulates like compound interest, and never ceases to exert its baneful power until fixed for life. This fault is the glaring and frequent contradictions between parental precepts and examples, although the least experience will suffice to convince any one who will consult it, that the latter will forever be followed rather than the former; nor will any thing ever check it but the fear of some very severe punishment—the rod (for example) on the back of the far less guilty child, instead of the shoulders of the parental tempter. The father or mother who calculates on their children totally abstaining, unless by external force, from any vicious indulgence whatever, of which they see their parents habitually guilty, counts on a moral impossibility. As well might they expect water not to boil when sufficient heat is long enough applied, or dry tinder not to burn when brought in contact with fire; for these appliances are to water and tinder what vicious parental examples will always prove to the juvenile mind. Woe, double and triple woe, be to those who set them, for they incur the most awfully dangerous responsibility of rendering their children utterly worthless! I confidently appeal, as in a former lecture, to the experience of every one who now hears me, and I beseech them to ask themselves how many drinking, gambling, profane, lazy, idle fathers have they ever known whose sons were exempt from these vices? How many have they ever known who habitually gave way to bursts of anger and wrath—to a rude, dictatorial, despotic, quarrelsome disposition, especially in the privacy of home, which many seem to think a suitable place for acting as they would be ashamed or afraid to act in public, where they would meet with somewhat more formidable checks than helpless wives and children; how many such fathers can any recollect, whose sons did not resemble and probably surpass them in all their worst habits? Equally sure, too, will the daughters be to follow their mamma's goodly examples, should they also habitually display any of those faults or vices that are calculated to sully the purity of the female character, or in any way to degrade and render it odious. With such facts continually before the eyes of all parents, what supreme folly and madness—nay, what deadly guilt must be theirs, who do not avoid setting bad examples to their children, as they would shun the utmost extremity of misery!
Among those parental faults which soonest begin to work incalculable mischief, is the habitual practice of talking and acting in such a manner, in regard to the whole class of teachers, that by the time their children are sent to school they learn to look upon the entire tribe of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses as belonging to a class much inferior to that of their parents, and to consider their being placed under such supervision as a kind of purgatorial punishment. I once knew a gentleman in whose mind these early notions had taken deep root, who used to say, that he could never pass through a pine-wood resembling that in which his first schoolhouse stood, without being thrown into a cold perspiration by it. Without doubt he had been exposed to the parental practice I am now condemning, the almost inevitable consequence of which is, to create contempt and aversion for teachers, reluctant obedience, distrust in their capacities to teach, and not unfrequently open insubordination. Manners and polite deportment are deemed quite hidden mysteries to these teachers, or matters with which the parents never designed they should meddle—it being frequently intimated that they never had opportunities for acquiring the first, nor feel any interest in teaching the last, farther than to protect themselves from injury and insult. Awkwardness, if not rudeness also, is often deemed an almost inseparable part of their character; and their pupils are not unfrequently encouraged by parental smiles to laugh at and ridicule “the poor schoolmaster or mistress,” instead of being checked by timely reproof in all such conduct. If there happen to be the faint semblance of a little wit or humor in these remarks, many silly parents take the first opportunity of retailing them with evident pleasure, even in the child's presence; and the silly delight manifested at this supposed proof of marvellous precocity, completely overcomes all sense of the culpability of the act, or of its very pernicious influence on the dispositions of the child. At most it is pronounced to be quite a venial peccadillo, amply compensated by the intellectual smartness which it evinces. The seeds of vanity, self-conceit, and censoriousness are thus sown in the youthful mind as soon as they can take root, and by the very hands too whose sacred duty it is to protect it from all harm.
Closely allied to the foregoing fault is the ever restless haste of very many parents to make men and women of their children sooner than nature intended. It may well be called the hot-bed system, and like that from which it takes its name, produces plants out of season, incapable of withstanding necessary exposure to the open atmosphere and the vicissitudes of climate. The consequence is, that the period of scholastic education is most injuriously shortened, particularly for girls. The boys are pushed forward into professions, and turned loose to act for themselves, with a mere smattering of literature and science—often before any power for serious reflection has been acquired, or indeed could well be formed in such juvenile, inexperienced minds, in regard to the great, complicated duties of life, the objects most worthy of pursuit, and the all-important principles which should ever govern them in fulfilling the first, as well as in attaining the last. False estimates of human life, aggravated by innumerable miscarriages in their ill-digested plans, necessarily follow; and the poor youths are most unjustly condemned for failure in pursuits wherein they have been either forced or suffered from most foolish and mischievous indulgence to engage, long before they had maturity either of body or mind sufficient to render success even probable. They are stimulated—nay, often driven to sea, on the vast, tempestuous ocean of life, without compass or rudder to their little barks, and then are most grievously abused for getting wrecked, when the pilots who should have steered their fragile vessels had most unpardonably abandoned their trust. But should the frequent occurrence of such a calamity create any surprise, when we find so many, even of those who know better, so far yielding to the popular error, as to manage their sons in this way? It is quite enough to overcome all their wisest resolves, to be told by the majority of their acquaintance, that “it is a shame to keep their boys so long in leading-strings—they should be doing something for themselves.” This sapient admonition usually settles every doubt, and the unfortunate youths, in all the perilous immaturity of boyhood, are forthwith converted into men, left to think and act for themselves. But their mental outfits for so arduous a business being entirely inadequate, their outfits of property are not unfrequently squandered, and irretrievably lost, several years prior to the time when they could reasonably be expected to understand their only true and legitimate uses. Hence we have many examples of young men who have actually run quite through their estates but a little beyond the time when they should have been first put into possession of them, and who have lost all respectability of character at a period when they should be only commencing their career of active life. If these unfortunate victims of parental folly—may I not say, wickedness—then open their eyes to their real situation, it will often be only to shut them again in utter despair, and plunge into all the fathomless depths of dissipation and vice, as their only refuge from the hopeless misery, the inextricable ruin in which they too late perceive that they have involved themselves. Hasty, inconsiderate marriages are often found to cap the climax of all this wretchedness, by adding helpless women and children to the number of sufferers, and thereby immeasurably augmenting the miseries of a condition which, without this, would seem to admit of scarcely any farther aggravation. A similar catastrophe often befals our girls who have had the deadly misfortune to be subjected to this hot-bed system. With unformed constitutions, and still more unformed minds, they are hurried into situations where they have to act the parts of women, before they are rid of the dispositions, inclinations, and follies of children. They not unfrequently marry and become mothers, while yet distant from the age of maturity, and thus have to fulfil the all-important duty of forming the hearts, minds, and principles of children, when, in fact, they are little more than children themselves. Loss of life is, in many instances, the forfeit paid for such premature marriages. But should they escape this awful sacrifice, they rarely fail to have their constitutions broken down, their powers of useful exertion greatly impaired or irrevocably lost; and an early grave, often—alas! too often, closes the heart-rending scene over these poor, unfortunate victims of parental mismanagement, at a time when probably they would just have reached the meridian of mature life, had they been properly prepared for all the momentous duties of wives and mothers, before they were compelled to fulfil them. Their helpless offspring are thus bereft of maternal nurture, when the parent was just beginning probably to understand what it ought to be—and how holy, how sacred she should esteem her obligations, to fulfil it most unremittingly to the children of her bosom. The same forcing process is then applied to the innocent little survivors; and they, in their turn, are to be married, if possible, when they should still be at school—to have the care of children before they know how to take care of themselves—and often to die, when they should be just beginning to live as the mistresses of families. Boys and girls have thus to act the part of instructers, while they themselves should yet be pupils; and the elementary education of their offspring, which is by far the most important part, is inevitably exposed to all the danger of being entirely perverted, by the inexperience, the unavoidable ignorance, and the moral incapacity of such very juvenile teachers. In regard to daughters especially, it may truly be said, that a cardinal article in the nursery creed of multitudes of mothers is, that they must marry, and marry early, even without nicely weighing moral consequences, if it cannot be done as prudence, common sense, and correct principles would dictate. The period for going to school is thus necessarily curtailed within limits scarcely sufficient for the simplest elementary instruction, that the young candidates for conjugal honors may be pushed into general society and public amusements, which are considered the great marts for matrimonial speculations. Now, although marriage is highly honorable, as well as the state which may afford most happiness in this life, it is indisputably true, that it can be neither honorable nor happy, unless very many circumstances, too frequently overlooked or disregarded, concur to make it so. It can produce nothing but disgrace and unhappiness if contracted, as it often is, without affection, esteem, or even respect for the husband, who is married merely for his wealth; or, because the poor girl has been taught to dread the condition of an old maid as something so terrible, that it should be avoided at every hazard. Equally certain is it that marriage can procure no happiness—nay, that it is a truly miserable condition, without good morals, good temper, and a tender regard among the parties. Yet thousands of unfortunate girls marry rather than live single, simply because their parents and other connexions have made them believe that to remain unmarried, is to become objects of general derision and contempt. Even if this were true, as it certainly is not, surely there is no rational person who would not pronounce such a state much more bearable than a union for life with a man who was vicious both in principles and conduct, who was cursed with a bad temper, and incapable of any sentiment even resembling conjugal love. A very large portion of the miserable marriages which we see in our society, may justly be ascribed to this most cruel—I may say, wicked error in the parental nurture of daughters. It is too shameful to be acknowledged by any as committed by themselves; yet there is not a person probably in the United States who cannot cite many instances of it in others.
Another parental fault of very extensive prevalence, is their sufferance, if not actual encouragement of an opinion very common, at least among their male children, that it is quite manly, magnanimous, and republican to oppose, even by open rebellion, (if nothing less will do) all such scholastic laws and regulations, as they, in the supremacy of their juvenile wisdom, may happen to disapprove. This has been signally and most lamentably verified in regard to that particular law so indispensably necessary to the well being of all schools, which requires the students to give evidence when called upon, against all violators of the existing regulations, without respect to persons. How an opinion so absurd and pernicious first got footing, unless by parental inculcation, it would be difficult to say; but nothing is more certain than its wide-spread influence, nor are there many things more sure than the great agency it has heretofore had in preventing any good schools from being long kept up in a flourishing condition, at least in our own state, where they are as much wanted as in any part of the Union. Such an opinion is the more unaccountable—indeed, it appears little short of downright insanity, when we come to reflect that all think it right for adults to be punished for refusing to give evidence before our courts when required, in regard to any breaches of the laws under which they live; and yet, the same individuals who entertain this opinion, almost universally uphold their own children in committing a similar offence, by withholding their testimony when any of the laws under which they live are violated at their respective schools—even should such violation go to the very subversion of the schools themselves. Nay, more—if a poor devoted teacher or professor should dare to punish these very independent young gentlemen for such unjustifiable and fatal contumacy, a universal clamor is immediately raised against him—his character is instantly stigmatized for cruelty and tyranny, while that of the rebel youths is eulogized as much as if they were really martyrs to generous feeling and magnanimous self-devotion to the good of others. All sense of just punishment and disgrace is thus effectually taken away, and the young offender is taught to pride himself on what should be his shame. That fathers should acquiesce in the wisdom and justice of laws to punish themselves for certain offences against society at large, and be unable to see the justice and wisdom of laws to punish their sons for similar offences against the little societies called schools, is surely one of the greatest and most inexplicable follies of which men, in their senses, can possibly be guilty. Have not these last named institutions precisely the same right and reason, that national governments have, to pass laws for their own preservation? How, indeed, could either long exist without them? It will be in vain to deny the prevalence of this most pernicious folly, so long as we find a very large majority of the youth of our country acting under the opinion of its being highly disgraceful to do that before the faculty of a college, or the head of a school, which their fathers deem it perfectly right to do every time they themselves are called as witnesses before the juries and courts of their country. I have said more on this parental fault than otherwise I should have done, because I am thoroughly and deeply convinced that there never can long exist any flourishing schools, academies, or colleges, in any portion of our country, where so radically mischievous an error prevails. Our youth must be taught, and by their parents too, that they have no more right to exemption from the restraints of scholastic law, than men have from the inhibitions of the laws of their country—that all legitimate human institutions have a clear, indisputable, and necessary power to make regulations for their own preservation; that this power must be obeyed, or it is utterly useless; and that if obedience be proper, honorable, and indispensable in their fathers, it cannot possibly be improper, unessential, or dishonorable in their children. Let our sons be taught this lesson at home, and the absolute necessity of always acting up to it every where, and we may then confidently hope, but not until then, that all our seminaries of instruction will flourish in a far greater degree than we ever yet have witnessed. “It is a consummation most devoutly to be wished,” and one, towards the accomplishment of which, neither time, money, nor intellectual effort should be spared.
Another fault committed by many more parents than are aware of it is, that either from very culpable neglect in studying their children's characters, or from most fatuitous partiality, they often send them to school, in full confidence that they will prove most exemplary patterns of good principles and good conduct, when, in fact, they are signally deficient in both. The consequence is, that should any teacher be daring enough to communicate the painful intelligence, it is either entirely discredited, or it comes on the unfortunate, self-deluded parent with the suddenness and shock of a clap of thunder. If the account is believed, the punishment justly due to the real author of the mischief, the guilty father or mother, is not unfrequently inflicted on the child; or, should it be deemed false, young master or miss (as the case may be) is immediately taken away, and turned loose at home to unrestrained indulgence, or sent to some instructer who has more of the cunning of worldly wisdom than to make any such startling and incredible communications.
In close connexion with the foregoing fault is one of still greater and more injurious prevalence. It is assumed, as a settled point, probably by a majority of parents, that if heaven has not bestowed on their offspring more than a usual proportion of brains, at least a very competent share has been allotted them; and that they—the parents, have not failed previously to sending the children to school, in doing every thing necessary to enable those brains to work beneficially for the craniums which contain them, and for the bodies whose movements are to be governed thereby. Yet there are certainly many children—very many, who from great deficiency of natural talent, appear to be born for nothing higher than to be “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” This truth cannot be denied; yet the fathers and mothers of these children, in despite of nature, will often persist in attempting to make them learned men and learned women. The consequence is inevitable. An irreparable waste of time and money results from the abortive attempt, and thousands who might have become useful and highly respectable day laborers, at some easily acquired handicraft, are converted, by this most misapplied and cruel kindness into ridiculous pretenders to situations that nature never destined them to fill. This parental notion of marvellous talents and virtues in their children—if it happen to be unfounded—and much too often it unfortunately proves so, leads certainly to the conclusion, that whatever scrapes the children get into at school, or, however deficient they may appear in acquirement, when they go home, the whole and sole blame attaches to the teachers; and the children are withdrawn, often without the slightest intimation of the real cause, leaving the luckless instructers to infer, that, probably, they have given satisfaction.
Another very general and deeply rooted fault in parents, is, the readiness with which they believe and act upon the complaints of their children, often without taking the smallest pains whatever to ascertain whether these complaints may not be at least exaggerated, if not entirely unfounded. The humorous author of Peter Plymley's letters has said—“that a single rat in a Dutch dyke is sometimes sufficient to flood a whole province.” The idea intended to be conveyed by this, is eminently true, especially in relation to female seminaries, where only one gossipping, talking girl, although free, perhaps, from malicious intent, is quite enough to destroy an entire school. Were it possible for teachers before hand, to know the propensities of such little bipeds, they should exclude them as carefully as the Dutch attempt to do the small, apparently impotent quadrupeds, that do them so much injury. But suffer me to cite some instances to sustain my opinion. Let us suppose, for example, that the grievance complained of is partial treatment. To say nothing of the difficulty of proving a negative, or of disproving, even when heard, a charge which covers so much ground, and which is rarely suffered to reach the teacher's ears—it is perfectly easy to demonstrate, that it may, and often will be made, without the shadow of truth. When to this is added, its utter incompatibility with that portion of common sense, which all instructers, who are not miserable drivellers, must possess, and which they, of course, will exercise, in comparing their infinitely small and doubtful gains, with their great and certain loss by such injustice towards the complainants, (putting all principles of honor and public pledges out of the question,) the accusation ought to appear in most cases, past all rational credibility. But let us return to the proof, that the charge of partiality may and will often be made without the shadow of truth. It is a thing which deeply concerns all schools, and is therefore a subject of common and vital interest—both to them and to the public. None have so little experience as not to know, that among the scholars of every school there will be irregularities of conduct with corresponding inequalities in talent, application, and acquirement, and that the old adage, that “one man can carry a horse to water, but that four and twenty can't make him drink,” is equally true in a figurative sense as to children at school. Hence, some pupils go on very successfully, without punishment of any kind, while others not unfrequently require it in all its most effective forms. This equitable and obviously necessary difference in treatment, between offenders and non-offenders, is always sensibly felt by the culprits themselves—often deeply resented; the true cause of it, rarely well understood, and still more rarely acknowledged or explained, especially to parents and guardians: for self-accusation is least apt to be made by those who most frequently commit acts that should produce it. Much the most common course among the violators of any moral law or obligation whatever, whether they are children or adults, is to seek refuge from the consciousness of one fault, in the commission of some other—which other, generally, is, to shift the blame, if possible, from themselves. That humble, contrite, self-abasing spirit which caused the prodigal son to exclaim—“Father, I have sinned against heaven and thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son,” is hardly to be expected, in any great degree, among children at school: yet they should possess it, before their parents ought to rely on their competency to judge and decide in their own cases, whether they or their teachers are in the wrong—cases too, wherein it is perfectly obvious, that if the teachers are the offending party, they must have become so in opposition to their best interests. From the foregoing considerations, it is manifest, that among such children at school as are justly reproved or punished for misconduct, unjust complaints of partiality in the teachers will frequently arise; and that these will often be too readily credited, without any investigation, or even the slightest hint to the persons thus secretly accused, of what has been alleged against them. In all such cases a withdrawal of the pupils almost certainly follows, succeeded by abuse of the schools, which often becomes the more bitter and inveterate, from the parents themselves having an unacknowledged conviction, that they are the injurers, instead of the injured party. With all such persons the self-applied cure for the mortification arising from incurable dullness, or depravity in their children, is to slander their teachers wherever it can safely be done.
Another proper and necessary difference in the scholastic treatment of children proceeds from difference of age. But most unluckily, it sometimes happens, that very young little masters and misses expect to be treated like grown up young gentlemen and ladies; and should such very rational expectations be disappointed, as they most assuredly should be, these premature aspirants to the privileges and immunities of manhood and womanhood, take most grievous and unappeasable offence at it. Heavy, but vague complaints of partial treatment follow of course; parental tenderness is naturally excited; parental credulity lends too easy credence to the tale of juvenile woe; and a change of school is the frequent consequence, without the really innocent teachers even suspecting that any such cause could possibly have produced it.
Another most extensively pernicious fault in parents, is the incompatible expectations formed of what teachers can do, with the practice of treating them, and speaking of them, as scarcely above the menial class of society. The expectations of many fathers and mothers would appear to be something not very far from a belief, that instructers are masters of some wonder-working process which can inspire genius where it never existed; give talents that nature has withheld; correct in a few weeks or months every bad habit, however long indulged; and force knowledge into heads, pertinaciously determined to reject, or so constructed as to be incapable of receiving it. The general conduct towards such intellectual magicians, where consistency is at all regarded, should certainly be, at least, to place them on a footing of perfect equality with the members of the most esteemed professions in society. But what is the fact? Why, that schoolmasters and schoolmistresses are viewed by multitudes of those who arrogate the right to decide, as a class of persons, essentially vulgar and awkward in their manners; ignorant of the world; of low, grovelling, selfish principles, and nearly incapable of any of those feelings and high sense of honor which are claimed, as a kind of inalienable property by all who believe, (and there are thousands of such individuals,) that wealth and worldly distinctions authorize them to be proud, arrogant, and contemptuous towards all who are deficient in the gifts of fortune. It is not easy to trace this opinion respecting teachers to its source, because one would think that the least pittance of common sense would teach parents the impossibility of their children ever being well taught by any persons for whom they felt no respect, and the equal impossibility of respecting those whom their parents evidently despised. Two causes probably may have produced this mischievous variance between the conduct of parents towards instructers, and the momentous duties which these last are expected to fulfil. First, that many who have taken upon themselves the profession of teachers, have neither the talents, the knowledge, the temper, nor the manners necessary to discharge its numerous and arduous duties; and secondly, that the pride of wealth, which generally indulges itself in an exemption from bodily and mental labor, naturally seeks to dignify its idleness by assuming a superiority over all who work either with their hands or their head. But be the origin what it may, the cause of education is most injuriously affected by it.